


Lasting Effect

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2017 [42]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Drama, Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, references to past torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 04:45:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13182642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: Poe is less well than he seems, and Leia notices.





	Lasting Effect

When Poe returns to base, it’s not apparent, to the untrained eye, that anything’s wrong with him.  
  
“Dameron!” Leia exclaims, as shocked as she might have been if Luke had strolled onto the Resistance base. “We heard you were captured; we thought you were dead!”  
  
“Still alive!” Poe says with his usual grin, and professional behavior aside, Leia wants to hug him. She worked closely with Poe for a while now, and knew his mother well during the war, and despite her best intentions she’s developed some affection for the young man (affection that may have been channeled to Ben if he was still here, but he’s not, and so she’s concluded that those damnable instincts are looking for an outlet somewhere else). “Boy, have I got a story for you, General.”  
  
Leia smiles, but falters when she gets close enough to Poe to see something on his face, in his eyes; something she recognizes, something she’s seen before a thousand times on a thousand different faces in a thousand different situations; it’s not something she’s ever put an exact word to, because it’s not something one can sum up with one neat word, and also maybe because she suspects her Force sensitivity might be part of what contributes to her ability to detect this Thing. It’s something blank, something dark, something _broken_ in someone’s being- it’s something that suggests that something very _bad_ happened during Poe’s captivity.  
  
And as Leia has been captured by forces of the Dark Side before, she can make some educated guesses as to what those bad things are.  
  
“We need to debrief you.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
  
[---]  
   
The debriefing confirms a lot of things.  
  
Poe was captured, after Lor San Tekka was killed; then he was interrogated (his word, and Leia reads into it because she knows what ‘interrogation’ means for people like the First Order); then- and that’s the amazing part- he escaped not on his own, but with the assistance of a _rebel Stormtrooper._ Apparently this trooper, Finn, wanted out of the First Order and was willing to help Poe escape as well.  
  
It’s around this time that that Thing starts to become more prominent. Poe’s not smiling anymore when he says, “I… I’m pretty sure he’s dead. I woke up, crawled out of the TIE-fighter, and he wasn’t inside it anymore. My memory’s kind of… Fuzzy? But I looked around the crash-site for him, and I didn’t find him. I don’t know if he ejected and landed somewhere else, or what happened.”  
  
There’s a slump to his shoulders now, a heaviness in his expression. He looks tired, and if that were the only problem, Leia would ground him for a few days for recovery.  
  
But that’s not the only problem, and she knows it.  
  
Poe _skimmed_ over the interrogation, only admitting (without looking Leia in the eye) that Kylo Ren had managed to break into his mind and figure out that BB-8 had the map-piece that he was looking for. If he’s willing to admit that a Force-user broke into his mind and took information without so much as a blush, then Leia can only imagine the things he’s holding back, the things the interrogators did to soften him up before Kylo Ren ( _Ben_ ) came in and finished him off.  
  
“Barring catastrophic circumstances, you’re grounded until further notice.”  
  
Poe’s jaw drops. “ _What?_ ”  
  
“You heard me.”  
  
“But I’m fine!”  
  
“You need a full medical and psychological evaluation.”  
  
“A psychological evaluation?!”  
  
“Did I stutter?”  
  
The telling thing is that Leia does not see confusion or surprise in Poe’s eyes so much as she sees dread. He already knows why she’s recommending a psych evaluation and he doesn’t want to do it- not because he doesn’t need one, but because he dreads discussing what he knows he’s going to have to discuss.  
  
But Poe already knows how fruitless it is to argue with her, and so he falls back, resigned, and his posture droops again.  
  
“Can I at least work on my X-Wing?”  
  
Leia’s not that cruel. “Fine. But if you get another one blown up we’re going to have you paying for them yourself.”  
   
[---]  
   
Naturally, catastrophe comes.  
  
Starkiller Base and its destructive capacities becomes a terrifying reality, and Leia has no choice but to allow Poe back into the air; he’s been cleared physically (most of the injuries he received have healed enough by now) and she’s content that psychologically he’s capable of this _one_ thing before being grounded for the required time he’ll need for the full psychological evaluation.  
  
“I’ll be fine, General,” Poe says, with all the earnestness he can muster, and that’s probably because he genuinely believes he’s okay and that he can handle it, and Leia’s heard that before; _famous last words,_ she thinks.  
  
“You had better be,” She tells him, and then goes back to preparing for the evacuation of their base before the First Order can target them with the Starkiller.  
 _  
He’ll come back,_ she thinks, trying to soothe herself as she sends her best pilot to blow up a base; she’s already sent Han off to confront their son, and that’s already got her on edge without these new concerns with a young man she feels something vaguely maternal towards. _He’ll come back. They’ll all come back._  
  
They’ll come back, everyone will leave this base, move to the next one, and everything will be fine.  
  
She hopes.  
  
-End


End file.
